The Power of Quiet Courage
I can wield the pen and deliver a fiery, off-the-cuff reckoning with the best of them. An innate and well-trained ability to cut through layers, identify root causes, and trace responsibility has rarely steered me wrong. I have spoken when necessary and accepted the consequences. Yet I have also spoken when silence — though not blindness — would have better served. There is courage and conviction in speaking up when others choose to cower or enable.
But there is also a still, small kind of bravery. One that tempers voices and carries you when you are too exhausted to move on your own. It is a bravery we embrace when the Lord whispers, “I will fight for you. Be still.” (Exodus 14:14)
It becomes an act of obedience, trust, and worship to the One who is all-knowing. As the sights, sounds, and scents of war began to fade and demonic attacks subsided, He shifted me from declaring truth to quietly surrendering it back to Him. At times I still paced floor boards in prayer; I still fell face-down on the kitchen floor and wept as His presence fell with instruction. Yet the weight of battle had been shifted. The assignment was not the same. His continual refinement and calibration of my voice had entered a season of quiet.
In the quiet, I remembered that courage is not only proven in battle cries. Sometimes it is revealed in hushed restraint. It blossoms in choosing obedient stillness when every part of me longs to act, defend, or fix what is broken.
In that place, He also worked within my husband and our marriage. The Lord made him rise up and lead in ways he had always avoided. It was a soft place where I slowly began to trust again. To realize I finally had someone I could lean on. I could draw from his strength, and trust that he would pick up the pieces when I could not.
The season of quiet was a sanctuary of protection. It was a sacred, treasured place of restoration. The Lord began to remind me of my competence, restoring my once obliterated confidence. He washed away the war, cleared out dead spaces, and allowed the garden to sprout again. My resilience was still necessary, but in different ways. The soil was richly fortified. What had been planted in weeping and mourning began reaching toward the sun.
My few remaining friends passively fell away. Awkward attempts to develop new friendships were respectfully sidestepped. I noticed the looks, quiet gossip, and exclusions. Oh, the sanctuary was still lonely. But God. We were cocooned a little bit longer. In our quiet place where the world could easily continue overlooking us unless it wanted to administer pain, Heaven never did.
